Two yeshiva students killed, 9 hurt in Conn. van accident

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NEW YORK (JTA) — Two Brooklyn teenagers were killed on their way to their Connecticut yeshiva when the van in which they were riding flipped on the highway.

Eli Shonbron, 16, and Dani King, 15, died at the scene, according to a Connecticut State Police report, after their 1998 Ford Club Wagon slid into the embankment on I-84 near Danbury early Monday. The van was filled with 11 students traveling to Yeshiva Ateres Shmuel in Waterbury, about 35 miles from the accident scene.

“We are saddened and shocked by the tremendous loss that we had," Rabbi Shalom Siegfried, a member of the school’s board of directors, told JTA. "We express our condolences to the family. We appreciate the outpouring of support from the greater community.”

The nine survivors were hospitalized with what was described as “non-life-threatening injuries.” Six were released Monday from Danbury Hospital and another passenger was transferred to another medical facility.

Elimelech Sperling, 21, a youth counselor at the yeshiva, reportedly was driving the van.

The students were returning to school after being sent home to Brooklyn because their yeshiva lost power during the freakish snowstorm that hit the New York metropolitan area in late October.